Moderate Lincoln Chafee Has Left The GOP Building
There’s good news today for Republican conservatives who felt former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee was nothing but a RINO (Republican In Name Only). And bad news for those who believe the Republican Party could use more consensus-oriented moderates.
Lincoln Chafee has left the GOP building. He has quit the party, the Providence Journal reports:
Lincoln D. Chafee, who lost his Senate seat in the wave of anti-Republican sentiment in last November’s election, said yesterday that he has left the party.
Chafee said he disaffiliated with the party he had helped lead, and his father had led before him, because the national Republican Party has gone too far away from his stance on too many critical issues, from war to economics to the environment.
“It’s not my party any more,†he said.
Chafee’s departure is another step in the waning of the strain of moderate Republicanism that was once a winning political philosophy from Rhode Island and Connecticut to the Canadian border. For the first time since the Civil War, the six New England states combined now have only one Republican U.S. House member, Connecticut’s Christopher Shays.
Chafee said he disaffiliated from the party “in June or July,†making him an unaffiliated voter. He did so quietly, and until yesterday, he said, “No one’s asked me about it.†He said he made the move because “I want my affiliation to accurately reflect my status.â€
“There’s been a gradual depravation of … the issues the party should be strong on,†and the direction of the national party, he said.
In a sense, it isn’t a surprise. When Chafee lost his race there seemed to be two underlying feelings if you watched him talk about it or read interviews with him. He seemed to have expected it and he was not bitter at all about voters deserting him. It’s as if he was saying that if he had to vote, given the direction of his party, he would have voted the same way, too.
And, as the Journal notes, he made no secret of the ways he differed from his party. He even wrote an Op-Ed piece in the newspaper right before the election detailing them:
In a Journal Op-Ed piece published on the Thursday before the election, Chafee himself laid out some of the ways he disagreed with his party, notably as one of only 23 senators and the only Republican to oppose the resolution supporting the invasion of Iraq. He went on to criticize the “permanent deficits†caused by Republican tax cuts.
Chafee referred yesterday to the broad-based, bipartisan Iraq Study Group that Congress created, a process Chafee approved of. The study group recommended a gradual pullback of American forces, and insistence that the Iraqi government take more responsibility for security. But he said that since the study group made its recommendations, which he agreed with, “no one’s paid any attention to them.â€
And he’s still critical of his party. The key question is going to be what happens in 2008
In the immediate aftermath of the 2006 Congressional elections, it was wide contended by many analysts that longtime traditional conservatives wanted to get their part back on track to traditional conservatism. The party’s already-weak moderate component was damaged by the loss of Chafee (who also took grief from and was defeated by Democrats).
So what will happen in 2008? Will traditional, Goldwater-descended conservatives want a change in direction from the Bush brand of Republicanism? And will this mean the party will welcome RINOs or exclude them?
Because if RINOs are excluded, perhaps some more of them in 2008 will leave the elephant’s party — and decide on Election Day to join the donkeys.
And there are more RINOS and donkeys put together than elephants….
30 Responses to “Moderate Lincoln Chafee Has Left The GOP Building”
Does the former Senator really feel more welcome in the reparation demands of the all Demcoratic Congressional Black Caucus or the open border, get rid of immigration laws all Democratic La Raza? If he does, the he should have left long ago.
Of course, as the U.S becomes a one party state, we will have to deal with the middle class, church going whites that he seems to absolutely detest.
There is not one single thing in this article or anywhere else indicating Chaffee detests church-going middle class white people.
Not. One. Single. Thing.
I defy you to show me the quote.
heh. you think people that say things like that can prove a damn thing?
George,
Who do you think votes for Republicans. The Democratic party get the vast majority of votes from every other groups than middle class whites. White, church going, middle class whites vote Republican at about the same rate that Hispanics vote Democratic.
When he claims that the party left him, I read that the party of country club elite whites was taken over by truck driving, church going middle class protestant whites.
Those truck-driving church-going middle-class whites may be the only ones voting Republican, since their ideology has driven off gays, non-Christians, blacks, Hispanics, the poor, moderates, independents and labor unions. Not much of a constituency, is it?
Wow!
So after you applied your secret decoder ring to this article, it also turned out that Chaffee detested Catholics and Jews, too?
Plus, any church-going Protestant who doesn’t drive a pick-up truck?
krit,
I have been consistent in stating that demographic changes in the U.S. will eventually make the Republican party irrelevant. If you look at voter turnout and exist polls, middle class whites are about the only group that votes at a higher than 50% rate for Republicans. White middle class males vote overwhelmingly for Republicans.
If blacks and Hispanics vote at the same rate as middle class white church goers, the Republican Party would be irrelevant today. Of course, those blacks and hispanics would probably have nothing to do with Chafee but I doubt if he would want to have anything to to with them.
Seems to me it was the actions of the Republican party that is doing most to push it into irrelevance.
But I suppose blaming it on all those brown people makes it easier to sleep at night.
Davebo,
The demographic changes were going to make it happen eventually. The incompetence of the Bush Administraiton and the Republicans in Congress are just making it happen faster
Of course, I have not found a single pundit who want to speculate what the U.S. will be like as a one party state.
[...] Republican Lincoln D. Chafee is now a former (moderate) Republican. He announced today that he has left the GOP. The reason of his decision to leave the Grand Old Party: Chafee said he disaffiliated with [...]
It’s one thing to say the Republicans have some problems as a political party.
It’s something else to say the problems of the Republican Party are based solely on demographic trends.
But it’s completely different to say that someone who leaves the Republican Party detests all white church-going Protestants, simply because he’s leaving the Republican Party.
SuperDestroyer opined
The last election was the precursor of the tables-turning election coming up in 2008. By dint of lying, cheating, stealing, queers-and-smears dirty tricks, swiftboat liars, $200 million and an army of shyster lawyers, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and all the little bushes and cheneys managed to defy political gravity twice. They managed to buy and bully their way to the greatest suspension of disbelief since Hitler wowed Germans in the 1930′s.
Don’t look down, because gravity is asserting iteself.
In 2000 and every year since, polls consistently show a clear majority of Americans disagree with Bush and Cheney on most major issues.
An unprecedented 70 percent of Americans think Bush’s Iraq war was a mistake to begin with and has been mismanaged beyond redemption. Yet, every one of the GOP candidates put on tinfoil hats, gulp the Kool-Aid and promote the same loser open-ended war in Iraq, stupidly equating that with winning the war against terrorists.
Last but not least, SD, IMO and I think in the opinion of most Democrats and liberals, truck-driving, churchgoing, middle-class Protestant whites are smarter and more practical than you or radical right-wing Republicans give them credit for being. There’s ample reason to believe these American have finally had it with being taken for granted, with being treated like sheep and suckers.
In the Republican Party, The Decider and his cronies, like dirty-tricks meister Karl Rove and secretive, “F-you” Dick Cheney, have all the say. They’ve shown who they’re willing to listen to and who they’re willing to shower money and advantages to: their wealthy friends, families and backers.
Democrats believe a president should govern openly, honestly and in the longterm best interests of all the people.
I credit truck-driving, churchgoing, middle-class Protestant whites with being smart enough to know when they’ve been had, whose really looking out for them, and to make their political choices accordingly.
SuperDestroyer opined
Must be why Republicans have devoted so much effort to suppressing the black vote.
Ironic that Chaffee leaves the Republican party for the same reason I did … 19 years ago. The writing on the wall seemed plain then (1988 – Pat Robertson presidential run, Falwell a delegate, GHW Bush the nominee, an election about the “Pledge of Allegiance,” how bad the ACLU is, and “Willie Horton”).
Better late than never, but congratulations, Senator Chaffee.
SD,
You do realize that those demographic trends are why Karl Rove pushed so hard to gain Hispanic converts to the GOP, do you? A big reason he pushed gay marriage – in addition to manufacturing the usual outrage among Southern Baptists – was to draw away a sizable fraction of African American churchgoers by appealing to homophobia. The strategy was successful as far as Latinos were concerned, as 44 percent voted for Bush. But it failed to nudge the black vote at all. And the blowback among the white GOP base more than offset the short-term gains of pulling in Latinos.
[...] Joe beat me to it! My bad — sorry for the double [...]
[...] see our earlier post HERE. [...]
I notice that Chaffee is now an Independent, not a Democarat. “Independent’ seems to be the afficliation of choice for those leaving either party, so the Democrats have no reason to gloat, excpet for the one issue of Iraq.
The Democrats have chasms of differences within its memberhisp, and the longer they are in power, the wider those chasms will grow. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an icreasing number of defections to Independent status from its membership over time.
Partly this disaffection comes from general disgust with the way politcs works in Washington these days (lobbyists, pork and earmark exesses, etc.), but patly it comes from the new trend of no one wanting to compromise about anything. As evidenced by the failure to pass an immigration bill, everyone seems to have the same ‘my way or the highway’ attitude as we see in the WH.
To hold things together, it will take a strong showing by the moderates in each party. The Republicans have a Pete Abel initiative. The Democrats need something similar, IMO.
And no, I don’t believe That having a three or more party system will help.
elrod,
Yes, I know that Rove thought that he could find niche issues to attrack black and hispanic voters. However, history has shown is was a fool. That 44% number has been discredited. Bush probably received less than 40% of the Hispanic vote and the Hispanic support did not translate to any down ballot support for other Republicans.
Also, the Republicans have realized that they are stuck in that any pander that they do to get black or hispanic votes loses more middle class white voters than it does in gaining minority votes. That is one of the main reasons that the Republican Party will quickly go out of business.
The real quesiton is once the U.S. only has one political party what will the effects be. One theory will be that the Democrats will become more moderate when all of the current Republicans start voting in the Democratic primary. Another theory would be is that in sort of moderation created by the two party system will end and the extreme left will become dominate.
Gotta disagree with you Doma- The Democratic base feels that its members in Congress have caved in too much on continuing to fund the war and on expanded warrantless wiretapping.
Most Republicans who disagree with Bush or with the GOP hardliners ( like Chafee, Bloomberg, Warner and Hagel) are either changing their party status or choosing not to run again in ’08. They will not be around to change the party’s rigid ideology.
Back to Chafee per se…….
It’s funny in that Chafee you actually get the literal definition of RINO, not just the connotation of socially moderate. He really is/was a functioning Democrat on most any issue I can recall.
Chafee never voted for a tax cut that I ever recall……I believe that is a unique “accomplishment” in the history of the Senate Republicans.
Krit said:
“The Democratic base feels that its members in Congress have caved in…..”
———-
That’s true at the moment. If they handle the withdrawal recklessly, the public will desert them in a nano second. The public wants success, and even what they demand today will be cause for disapproval if the results are poor.
I’m not sure what the ‘base’ of the Democrats is. The progressive ‘withdraw yesterday’ crowd id the loudest, but a lot of Democrats are looking at this with quite rational fear and trepidation. There are risks that many Democrats acknowledge; they simply weigh the risks of staying against the risks of withdrawing and come out on the side of leaving.
Others, however, ignore the risks now, but will beat the Democrats over ther head with any negative conseauences, ignoring that those consequences are the result of what they demanded.
At any rate, war and wiretapping are not the only issues. It’s a matter of deciding whether they want to achieve a respected and responsible manner of handling controversies or they choose to give in to partisan excessrs. If the latter, they will be repeating the mistakes of Republican rule and will, likely repeat the Republicans’ declme.
He’s not conservative, nor moderate (any more than so many liberals on here are “moderate” [sic]). He indeed is, or was, a RINO, as are Collins and Snowe and at times, Specter. He’s a liberal dinosaur out of touch with conservatives and (real) moderates and a poster child for liberalism in this country that’s alien to most Americans, not merely to his “fellow” Republicans.
Too many of those people have what an author of a fine new book calls the “Massachusetts virus” in them.
“a poster child for liberalism in this country that’s alien to most Americans,”
It’s odd how what ‘most Americans’ are always coincides with the views of the observer. ‘Most Americans’ seem to be an extremely motley crew, changing from assertion to assertion.
Exactly. Look at his record. The same behavior as well as values are found in Collins, Snowe, Specter…and in much of the Northeast where people haven’t awoke (or grown up) and you still see bloated governments which rule over their fiefdoms, and delusional people who say Bush or Republicans are “reactionary” (as I heard once in Albany, itself synonymous with “dysfunctional,” a place that even has the US’s equivalent of a Communist-era-style monument to government, Empire State Plaza).
Not if your eyes and mind are functional.
‘Most Americans’ seem to be an extremely motley crew, changing from assertion to assertion.
Not if your eyes and mind are functional.
===============
Thanks. My point thas been rpoved.
Or maybe they left because the current GOP policies and practices seem to be geared almost entirely towards the rich and corporations at the expense of middle america and below. They have these wonderously short term ideas for success that neglect long term issues and result in problems not far down the road.
Or maybe its the part of the GOP that feels the need to reflexively label their political brethren RINO’s in the first place because of disagreements that has driven them out. Basicaly they don’t want to be lumped in with reactionary, politically craven people that think you can run a country cowboy style.
There was a post about the ENRON corp awhile with a quote from someone who works with the Ayn Rand institute about having the integrity to do business with the world as it is instead of as you wish it were. About mistaking real methods of production with imagined ones spawned by arrogance and wishful thinking. That to me summed up the entire Bush administration and indeed many of the far right’s worldviews and methodology. Neocons are incapable of making lasting contributions to the success of this nation because they simply can’t get over that hump.
DLS- Why are you complaining about the “bloated governments” in the NE, when the federal gov’t has become bloated under the Bush administration at a record rate?
Bush is the one who never grew up- he really sounds like a spoiled frat boy- in a recent speech overseas he told an Australian audience that we are “kicking ass” in Iraq. That sounds just as immature as his “bring it on” and “dead or alive” comments that he later regretted making. He just lacks the dignity of a diplomat- and comes across like a small-town high school football coach to me (apologies in advance to high school football coaches everywhere, lol)
lincoln springs…
work on lots of peoples lincolns that run into the thousands on suspension systems…and i went outside… Sounds like the compressor is bad or blown fuse but it could also be some other…